Tecno Camon 20 Pro is the upgraded version of last year’s Camon 19 Pro, and it offers more than just an attractive design. With its budget-friendly price tag, this smartphone is a pleasant surprise for smartphone enthusiasts who are looking for great hardware without breaking the bank. The rear of the phone features a slightly frosted texture that not only adds a luxurious touch but also provides a satisfying tactile feel. The aesthetically pleasing styling, combined with the frame’s sheen that resembles that of an iPhone, gives the Tecno Camon 20 Pro a premium look without the high price tag.
Tecno Camon 20 Pro Design
The Camon 20 Pro follows the trend of contemporary Android smartphones with a puzzle deconstructionist (this is the brand’s official description) design. Inspired by postmodern architecture, it features a textured leather back with a unique pattern and a pentagon-shaped camera module.
The design not only adds a touch of luxury but also effectively hides fingerprints and smudges. Despite having a plastic frame, the smartphone exudes a premium look and feel.
In terms of ergonomics, the Camon 20 Pro sports flat edges instead of curved ones, making it comfortable to hold. The right spine of the phone houses the volume rocker and power button, while the bottom edge features a USB Type-C port for charging, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and a speaker grille.
There is an additional speaker on the top edge, providing stereo sound output. The left edge houses the SIM-ejector tray, which conveniently has a dedicated slot for a microSD card.
Display
The smartphone features a vibrant 6.67-inch FHD+ AMOLED display with a centered punch-hole design. It offers a snappy 120Hz refresh rate, which is the highest in its segment. The high refresh rate applies seamlessly to both the user interface and supported apps, ensuring smooth and fluid interactions. Moreover, users have the flexibility to adjust the refresh rate dynamically or choose from fixed options of 60Hz, 90Hz, and 120Hz. This level of customization is not commonly found in mid-range smartphones.
The display of the Camon 20 Pro impresses with thin bezels, excellent viewing angles, and impressive brightness levels, making the text legible even under direct sunlight. Additionally, the smartphone is Widevine L1 certified, allowing users to stream content from OTT platforms in FHD resolution.
Camera
As a camera-centric smartphone, the Camon 20 Pro 5G features a triple camera setup on the back. The star of the show is the 64MP RGBW (G+P) main sensor with a large f/1.65 aperture lens and OIS. This main sensor is designed to enhance light sensitivity and improve low light performance. Accompanying the main sensor are a 2MP depth sensor and a 2MP macro unit.
The camera performance is satisfactory as long as the AI feature is turned off. When AI is enabled, it tends to oversaturate colors, resulting in unnatural-looking images with a loss of details and dynamic range. However, with AI turned off, the images appear more balanced, with sharp details, realistic shades, and well-preserved highlights. The smartphone’s night video capturing capabilities suffer from noise and fair light detection, but overall, it performs well considering its price point.
On the front, the Camon 20 Pro 5G boasts a 32MP snapper in a punch-hole setup. In daylight, the front camera captures decent selfies with good detail and accurate skin tones.
However, in indoor or dimly lit environments, the details appear soft, and the colors appear slightly pale. The portrait mode adds a nice blur effect to the background, although the edge detection could be improved.
Performance
The Camon 20 Pro comes with Helio G99 platform. It’s not a flagship SoC, but it still performs admirably considering its affordable price. It effortlessly handles essential communication and navigation apps without any lag or slowdown. Additionally, it provides a satisfactory browsing experience for those moments of leisure.
In addition to that, this smartphone also offers decent gaming performance. While there might be some initial stuttering, games like PUBGM run smoothly on the Camon 20 Pro when configured with the right settings. It is possible to enjoy gaming sessions during your daily commute without any major issues. Moreover, the phone’s back cover effectively dissipates heat, reducing the need for an additional case.
OS & Battery
Running on Tecno’s custom HiOS 13 skin atop Android 13, the Camon 20 Pro offers all the functions and abilities expected from other custom Android skins. However, it does come with some pre-installed bloatware and notifications that cannot be uninstalled.
The Camon 20 Pro is equipped with a powerful 5000mAh battery, which ensures that you won’t have to worry about running out of battery power throughout the day. Whether you’re constantly using resource-intensive applications or indulging in occasional gaming sessions, this smartphone can withstand the heaviest strain and still manage to last a full day on a single charge. Moreover, if you use the phone more conservatively, you can expect even greater battery life.
In the rare event that your battery does run out, the Camon 20 Pro comes with a 33W fast charger. This ensures that your phone gets powered up quickly and efficiently. In just about 90 minutes, the charger can replenish the battery from completely empty to a full charge, allowing you to get back to using your phone without any significant downtime.
Verdict
Overall, the Tecno Camon 20 Pro is a solid flagship-killer smartphone with a price that falls within the mid-range category. Although some users may find the camera’s AI feature finicky, it can be easily remedied by turning it off. Once users get the hang of the device, the Camon 20 Pro transforms into a fully-fledged daily driver that could be one of the top choices in 2023 in this price segment.
